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Weekly Startup News Round-up [2nd Oct-8th Oct 2017] (4 Min Read)

Good morning people! Are you having Monday blues? Here we are to keep you motivated by bringing you the weekly startup news roundup. From Funding to the new launches in the Indian startup ecosystem, below is the weekly news roundup from the last week to keep you updated and motivated.

FUNDING GALORE:

OLA to raise $2 Billion from Soft Bank, Tencent.

Ola scored $2 billion in new funding from a group of investors including SoftBank Group Corp. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., according to a person familiar with the matter, helping to bankroll Uber Technologies Inc.’s fiercest rival in India.

YAANTRA raises $3.1 Million bridge fund.

Multi-brand smartphone refurbishing startup Yaantra has raised a $3.1-million bridge fund from its existing investors Carpediem Capital Partners & Duane Park. The Delhi-based startup had last year raised $6 million in Series-A fund from the same investors. The fresh fund will be used for expanding to 25 tier-II cities by 2018.

Used goods venture ZEFO gets Rs.60 crore in funding.

Zefo, an online marketplace for second-hand furniture and appliances, has raised Rs 60 crore in a round led by existing investors Sequoia Capital India and Helion Venture Partners. Japan’s Beenext has also participated in this round. The company plans to use the fresh funds for its core operations – warehousing, logistics, and product.

FlipKart fuels Logistics arm EKART with $98 million funding from group firm Klick2Shop

The logistics arm of Flipkart Group, Ekart has received about $98 Mn (INR 641 Cr) funding. The investment has been led by another Flipkart Group firm, the Singapore based Klick2Shop Logistics Services International, via its subsidiary Instakart Services Private Limited. The Ekart funding aims at strengthening the logistics services of the Flipkart Group, specifically during the festive season sales such as Big 10, Big Billion Days, and more.

B2B Agritech startup FARM TAAZA raised $8 Million in series A led by epsilon venture partners.

Bengaluru based B2B agritech startup, Farm Taaza, has reportedly raised $8 Mn Series A funding in a round led by Epsilon Venture Partners. The round saw participation from IL&FS Investment Managers’ Tara India Fund IV and other angel investors. Farm Taaza is looking to utilize the funding for expansion across the southern part of India. The financing will also enable the startup to further develop its tech stack.

MARKETS:

Paytm Payments Bank sees Rs 30 cr loss in FY17

Payments Bank has reported a loss of over Rs 30 crore at the end of financial year 2017, documents filed with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) show. This was the first year of setting up the bank by the Noida-based company. It started operations from the month of May this year. As per the documents, the company had an overall revenue of close to Rs 2.5 crore during the period under review.

OPPO gets permission to open retail outlets.

Govt. of India has approved their request to launch single-brand retail outlets in India. They have announced a massive investment of Rs. 2200 Crore in their second manufacturing unit in Greater Noida.

OnePlus Smartphones capture whooping 57% market share.

Since they launched OnePlus one in 2014, they have proved to be quite the market disruptor. Since then all their phones have proved successful in the Indian smartphone market. With 57% market share OnePlus rules the premium smartphone category in India.

Flipkart Claims Lead Position In Festive Sale Battle

Overall, for these festive season sale days, the RedSeer analysis shows that the Etailing industry managed to generate $1.5 Billion sales (INR 9,000 Cr). As compared to $1.05 Billion generated in 2016 edition, this is a year over year growth of 40%. Flipkart nailed the top spot, grabbing 58% of the GMV, while Amazon followed with 26% GMV.

MobiKwik Losses Over $3 Mn From His Bank Account

This was one of the shocking news for the Indian startup and tech ecosystem. It is said to be happening due to a technical glitch. A company official said the money was deducted from MobiKwik’s corporate account during online transactions made by individual customers. These wallet transactions were pertaining to recharge, bill payment, shopping etc.

LAUNCHES

ZOHO Launches Cliq

This was another important Indian startup news of the week. Cliq is an instant messenger with video, audio, and group conferencing features. The new application is designed to serve as a unified communication system for enterprises. Available in native, web and mobile versions, Cliq is programmed to seamlessly integrate data from the Zoho platform as well as third-party applications.

Amazon Launches B2B Marketplace Amazon Business

It will focus on the procurement needs of Small and Medium Businesses (SMB) such as technology and service companies, manufacturers, universities, schools, and offices. Also, through Amazon Business sellers registered with the e-commerce portal will provide SMBs with an access to over 100 Mn products along with GST compliant invoices.

Amazon Launches Echo and Alexa in India and Japan

Amazon is bringing its Echo speaker and Alexa smart personal assistant to India and Japan, the company said on Wednesday, marking its first foray into Asia with those products. Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Plus are voice-controlled speakers that have Amazon’s artificial intelligence (AI) personal assistant Alexa built in. They allow users to talk to the speaker to carry out tasks such playing music or setting reminders.

Flipkart launches its fifth private label MarQ for large appliances

MarQ will be the company’s fifth in-house brand, following a range of its own labels in fashion and furniture introduced over the past several months. Flipkart will price the MarQ products20% lower than comparable appliances. It will also offer after-sales services, led by its subsidiary Jeeves and with service centers located in close to 300 cities across the country.

Y Combinator is once again coming to India

Widely known for its three-month-long intensive incubation programme followed by demo date, Y Combinator provides seed funding for startups, the earliest stage of venture funding. YC invests $120K for a 7% equity stake in the selected startups. Once selected, the startups move to Silicon Valley, the accelerator takes care of their living expenses at the YC campus. Besides, the financial aid and fine-tuning their pitch, YC also help these startups in dealing with investors and acquirers. Earlier this year, eight Indian startups were shortlisted for YC’s Winter 17 mentorship programme. Among these were Playment, Bulk MRO, Servx, WiFi Dubba, Supr Daily, Dost Education, Credy and DocTalk.

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